[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 26, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1133-S1134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, over the last many months millions of 
Americans have signed up for affordable health insurance, many for the 
first time ever, many for the first time in many years.
  Millions of young people have stayed on their parents' insurance 
plans while they pursue higher education to start their first jobs.
  Millions of senior citizens have saved money on prescriptions--these 
prescription bills, they average about $1,200 they have saved, each 
senior--and tens of millions of women have access to free preventive 
care.
  Across the country, Americans who were once denied insurance because 
they suffered from something like cancer or something as simple as acne 
were able to buy affordable, quality health insurance they could afford 
and they could trust.
  Despite all that good news, there are plenty of horror stories being 
told. All of them are untrue, but they are being told all over America.
  The leukemia patient whose insurance policy was canceled and would 
die without her medication--Mr. President, that is an ad being paid for 
by two billionaire brothers that is absolutely false; or the woman 
whose insurance policy went up $700 a month--ads paid for around 
America by the multibillionaire Koch brothers, and the ad is false.
  We heard about the evils of ObamaCare, about the lives it is ruining 
in the Republican stump speeches and in ads paid for by oil magnets, 
the Koch brothers.
  But those tales turned out to be just that--tales, stories made up 
from whole cloth, lies, distorted by the Republicans to grab headlines 
or make political advertisements.
  Mr. President, these two brothers are trying to buy America. They not 
only funnel money through their Americans for Prosperity, they funnel 
money into all kinds of organizations to do the same thing that they 
are doing. They are trying to buy America. I do not believe America is 
for sale. But we will see. But do not take my word for all this. How 
about taking the word of a Noble Prize-winning economist who wrote last 
week in the New York Times:

       What the right wants are struggling average Americans, 
     preferably women, facing financial devastation from health 
     reform. So those are the tales they're telling, even though 
     they haven't been able to come up with any real examples.

  Paul Krugman writes, Republicans are ``just making [this] stuff up.'' 
It is easy to do if you have billions of dollars to spend and you are 
trying to buy America.

[[Page S1134]]

  But, Mr. President, we have our own stories to tell--true stories--
true stories of average Americans whose lives have changed for the 
better because of the Affordable Care Act, true stories of families 
that can rest easier knowing insurance companies can never again put 
profits first and people second.
  Take the story of a couple from Henderson, NV. I went to high school 
there. Their names are Jane and Brett Thomas. These are real stories. 
This story is true.
  Jane wrote to me recently to say she is ``ecstatic''--that is her 
word--to be saving $1,200 every month on a top-of-the-line family 
insurance plan thanks to ObamaCare.

  For years Jane was locked into her job as a school teacher because 
she, Brett, and their two teenage children needed guaranteed health 
insurance, and it cost a lot.
  But Jane was able to quit her teaching job to spend more time with 
her children and help her husband at the family small business. Jane 
says the Affordable Care Act has literally changed her life and the 
lives of her loved ones. This is what she wrote:

       Everyone on the news keeps talking of all the people the 
     law has hurt.

  An editorial comment from me: Koch brothers' lies.
  I will go back and start over:

       Everyone on the news keeps talking of all the people the 
     law has hurt, but I thought I should share our joy. The best 
     part is our insurance covers so much more and pays better on 
     every front. . . . I can't thank you and your colleagues 
     enough for fighting for people like me and my family.

  Republicans may need tall tales and outright lies to convince people 
that ObamaCare is bad for them, but Democrats do not have to make 
things up. We have the support of lots of people, including a Nobel 
Prize-winning economist, not ``OilCare'' magnets who are trying to 
benefit their businesses by spreading lies about things that do not 
matter to them.
  Millions of real Americans, like Jane and Brett Thomas, are 
benefiting from ObamaCare every day. Their premiums are lower. Their 
prescriptions are cheaper. They cannot be denied a policy or 
discriminated against. Their benefits cannot be cut off because they 
get sick or reach some arbitrary cap that some insurance executive 
dreamed up. They are no longer locked into jobs they do not love or do 
not need because they cannot get insurance anywhere else.
  The Koch brothers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars 
telling Americans that ObamaCare is bad for them. It is easy to do if 
you have no conscience and are willing to lie, like they are, through 
the ads they are promoting. But the Koches should stick to what they 
know--the oil business--the oil business--where they have made their 
multibillions of dollars. The truth is simply more powerful than any 
myth, any legend or any false political ad.

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